It’s that time of the year again… When we head to the local Walgreens or CVS, stare desperately at the quarter-mile-long display of Hallmark cards, and wonder why, out of the thousands of anniversary cards to choose from, none of them – not one! – adequately articulates how we feel about beginning Onely three years ago.

Sigh. Guess we’ll just celebrate by enrolling ourselves in another cheese-of-the-month club and hope our little blog project doesn’t call it quits.

But seriously, we are wondering what occasions merit an annual celebration for you, our well-adjusted, single-and-happy friends, in lieu of the traditional couple-centric “anniversary.” Sure, there are work anniversaries, but we figure those are few and far between, given how often the average worker changes jobs or careers in this day and age. People might celebrate the anniversary of buying a house, or graduating from college, or turning in one’s dissertation, or choosing to move to Beirut to begin a career, or the first time one went to Trader Joe’s, or the first white hair…. (apologies for the free association!)

Lisa celebrates the anniversary of adopting her dog, Kitty. Christina celebrates the anniversary of ___.

Ahem. Full disclosure: Lisa told Christina to fill in the blank, but Christina couldn’t think of anything. After Christina cursed out Lisa for not making the test multiple choice, she realized why she couldn’t think of any milestones or memories that she celebrates regularly: she doesn’t know any of their dates. She doesn’t know the date she moved to Germany, or the date she left Germany, or the date of her first Chinese class, or the date she quit her underpaid job, or the date she adopted her beloved cats. She had never been programmed to remember dates of anything, except related to romantic relationships (or birthdays). So going forward, Christina decided to just randomly assign dates to some of her favorite memories. For example, she will now celebrate the anniversary of her first Chinese class every September 13. And every November 13 she will celebrate the day Alvin and Theo came to their new forever home. In fact, she may have one anniversary per month, like a picture calendar (or a period).

So, what is it, Copious Readers? What do you (or will you) make a point of celebrating annually, in spite of the fact that Hallmark makes no cards for the occasion? And perhaps a more interesting question: How do you celebrate?

Oh nice point! Yes of course there are anniversaries like that which are not necessarily celebrations, but milestones of a different sort (where reflecting is a way of bringing control and some degree of learning to the experience).
CC

Alvin and Theo are ridiculously cute. I don’t make a point of celebrating any particular anniversaries, but I do try to do something special for my birthday every year even thought I don’t have a “significant other” to throw me a party.

If I could remember the date, I would celebrate the anniversary of when I first moved into an apartment by myself and began living alone. I’m sure I felt as happy that day as other people do on their wedding day.

oh wow, I was going to say the exact same thing. It’s only been a year and a half now and because I forget dates and such, I made sure to mark this one (plus a few huge events happened around that date to make me remember, lol).

My moving in alone to my own apartment was a huge step for me (being a girl in an Arab world) but somehow, when I mentioned it to friend and relatives that it was my one year anniversary, some shrugged it off as a non-event (they think I’m only doing this while waiting for the love of my life to show up *eyeroll*) or simply said “congratulations.”

Maybe next year I’ll gather up the nerve to send out “formal” invitation cards and throw a party to celebrate the event. Maybe then they’d take it seriously.

CC, I am taking you to a Chinese karaoke place on 9/13 and we are going to sing, in Chinese of course, like there is no tomorrow!!

For me, I am not too big on binding celebration to a specific date. I want to celebrate whenever I feel profoundly moved and empowered but this celebration does not need any cake nor card. Just a moment of contemplation is good enough.

Celebrating a more solitary milestone is more difficult in a way, because it requires a certain level of determination. I miss celebrating more often but at the same time, when there is just another wedding or birthday party to attend, I am not always up for it. I suppose that if the celebration were meaningful to me and not sometimes obligitory, it would be easier to truly celebrate.

Contrats dear Onelys on your anniversary! I have no idea when I started my blog, but it was about the same time . . . maybe 6 months later. So maybe I will just celebrate with you the anniversary of our Onely/Singlutionary blog friendship.